


To Come Into Focus

by 3amepiphany



Series: The Boutique AU [5]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Multi, The Boutique AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7182182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you want to wind up in Awesome's hot tub? Because dating Peepers is exactly how you wind up in Awesome's hot tub.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Come Into Focus

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I'm sorry this one took so long to put up. I attended my state's Comicon recently and needed the time to prepare for that as well as actually go and have the experience, so all of my writing got set aside for a bit.
> 
> Secondly, thank you all so far for hanging out here and reading this, and taking the time to kudos and comment. It's grand. You're grand.
> 
> Thirdly, I'm sorry, I've ruined a perfectly good star nomad. Look at it. It's got anxiety. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

“Come on, buddy.”

He opened his eyes and inhaled sharply, squeezing himself up into a tight ball, feeling the open stitchwork of the blanket tangling up in his fingers as he clutched it against him. Very slowly, he unfurled, Sylvia’s hand against his face, rubbing along his jawline and scratching at him gently as if he were a cat. His joints popped loudly in a few places, and he yawned. The television was still on, though instead of the movie he’d been watching it was a documentary on Fleeglebort and its deserts of fine clay dust, the volume turned lower than what he’d had it at before falling asleep. The cushions of the couch were warm and he didn’t really want to move at all, but he rolled onto his back anyways so he could look at her.

Sylvia dragged her hand through the moppy hair on the top of his head. “Hello, starshine.”

“You’re home,” he said quietly, in a happy tone. She smiled down at him. 

“I’m home,” she responded, sing-song. “Today really took it out of ya, huh? I just started dinner, your favorite dish.” She sat on the arm of the couch and waited to make sure he was waking up alright. He lay there, closing his eyes again and just taking in her presence now that he was aware of her, smelling the delicious dinner she’d been cooking. How had he slept through that?

“It’s gonna snow tomorrow, Syl.”

“It might.” She pulled out her phone and played with it for a bit, no doubt looking at the weather forecast.

“Do you remember,” he started, and then paused for a second before continuing, “that first day I came home and it was snowin’ here?”

He heard her sigh, and shift her weight a smidge. “I do. I remember sitting here in the dark with the blinds open, and waiting for you to say something for about four hours before you finally did. First you’d said anything in days. You didn’t even know that it was well past midnight. I almost didn’t, either. You didn’t eat, you were barely sleeping, and all I could do was sit there and tell you holiday stories and describe the snowfall out the window.”

Wander opened his eyes and watched her. She had set her phone down in her lap and was rubbing her hands together, wringing them, almost. “...Do you need help in the kitchen?” he asked her.

Very gently, she reached forward and pet his face. “Not much more to do, bud, but the company would be nice. Only if you want to, though. Do we want to set the table tonight or eat in here?” He smiled, and decided they should eat in the living room again - under blankets and on the couch and with a bad movie. She laughed and said she’d turn the heat up, but that he’d better go get the heavy down blanket from his closet anyways.

He sat up as she headed back to stir the meal bubbling away on the stove, and he cleared his throat. “Sylvia?”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh… today was… I couldn’t.” He swung his feet down off of the couch and tugged his socks back up. “I couldn’t disclose.” He waited for her to say something.

Finally, she said, “Where was the expectation coming from?”

She was completely right in asking that. He rubbed at his arm, ruffling the fur back and forth a bit, and then got up to go get the blanket so he could pile himself up in it at the edge of the kitchen. When he came back she asked him how his morning had been, otherwise. “He showed up early to watch me play. Kinda embarrassin’ but I pretended he wasn’t there until the end of the set and he didn’t even know I’d seen him as I was walkin’ across the street. We got to talkin’ after, and, well… it turns out we have very little in common,” he said, brightly. “It’s amazin’ though, because it led to some really, really, _really_ great conversation. We’ve got dinner plans for Sunday.”

“As I heard - Ryder was complaining about switching shifts before I left.”

“I oughta thank him.”

“I would hold off on that until it gets closer to Sunday. He said he owes it to Peepers anyhow but he didn’t seem too happy about that.” She handed him a glass of miak and he thanked her for picking up a new jug of it. “I have to admit, neither of you were texting the vrell out of me about it so I wasn’t sure what had happened.”

“Ahh, oh no, Syl, I’m sorry! I should have checked in. What a goober.”

“I’m not upset. You two must have been pretty preoccupied, and that’s how it should be.” After a little quiet, she tossed him a pot holder and told him to get comfy on the couch again, and she followed him into the living room with the pot. A second trip brought spoons and bowls, and her glass of wine and they settled in to eat while watching an old parody film.

He didn’t pay much attention to it, though, partly focused on the meal and partly lost in his own thoughts.

When they had first come here, it was still a good while before they’d even had a place; Sylvia did her best to try to find a nice, well-maintained apartment where the landlords wouldn’t ask about her putting down rent for a year up-front. But so many of them did, and it was mostly because she was trying to go about this with an arm in a sling and a cast, the other wrist and hand in a brace, and bruises and scrapes everywhere. Finally, though, she gave in to simply paying monthly, got with some of the representatives at the hospital, and found this building. Central heat, air-conditioning, quiet neighbors. Extra lock on the door and the keyed entryway downstairs were nice perks, but mostly where peace of mind was concerned.

The sofa and the coffee table were a gift, and the futon frame Sylvia had bought spent the first month still mostly boxed and in her room, its mattress pulled into the living room. Money, funnily enough, wasn’t the issue. The issue was grounding themselves for the time being. Settling and settling in. Neither one of them cared much for this sort of thing, this establishment - he was so used to the idea of being free to roam at will; she was so used to being on the move out of professional necessity and then also out of personal freedom when she met him. Their focus had been, for the longest time, their own enjoyment and the fulfillment of assisting others they came across.

But the new focus was putting themselves back together. And that was going to take time and rest, and the assistance of others.

It made him feel like a burden, and he still hadn’t been able to shake it. It crept in like snow clouds and freezing wind, and had settled in his bones the same way those tended to every year. “Syl, can I ask you somethin’ weird?”

“Sure.”

“Would you ever go back to bein’ a bounty hunter?”

She finished her wine and looked at him quietly. Then she said, “I’d be lying to the both of us if I said I didn’t think about it.”

“Do you think about it often?”

“On days when I’m particularly frustrated with nothing in particular, but that’s about it. I can’t really see myself actually getting back into that field. I’ve got better things to do with better people in my life now, and a really, really great interest rate on my savings. So there’s not really a need. Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” he said, sort of chuckling, “it’s nothin’. Anxieties, you know.”

She nodded, and then set down her glass and bowl, and settled in on her side of the couch. There was just as much to say about that as there wasn’t, and he finished the last of his meal before settling in, too, right up against her, like they would back when they were camping out under the stars.

He looked up at the ceiling of their little apartment and sighed. “Thank you for dinner. That was just what I needed.”

Monday morning found him having stirred a little bit too much sugar into his coffee and trying to keep his focus on what Dr. Jones was trying to say. He wasn’t entirely present for their session, and if that was because of the sugar and caffeine or his lack of sleep, or his preoccupation, or any number of things he could easily list off of the top of his head. He’d started off by saying that he could feel fatigue setting in, and he sat there quietly for a few minutes before saying something again (this time about discussing his coping patterns for his anxiety), as if he’d used the last of his reserved energy to get to this point in his day, and was relying on the beverage in his hands to get him through to lunch, when he could nap. He wondered if he should make an actual doctor’s appointment in case he’d actually been concussed at the bar and it wasn’t resolving. He probably should have done that. He could still do it. The snowfall wasn’t too bad out yet, but due Wednesday the forecast called for it to stick. Possibly even as early as Tuesday night. Walking around out in that would definitely be a bad idea. He brought himself back around to Dr. Jones, half because he found himself thinking that he should also ask if they could open the blinds and half because he could feel the anecdote being told building up to finish.

He caught the tail end of it just in time to ask, “So what was the solution to that problem?” 

“Naturally,” said Al, twiddling his pencil by twiddling his moustache, “I went for something pretty unorthodox. I was ridiculed for it, I was lambasted, I was generally just put on this pyre, kind of, but all of that was short-lived once the results came back, immediate and clear. I looked at my client and her problem and out of the most mentioned issues she had, being late to work because she had to drive all the way back home to make sure her curling iron was turned off and not a hazard was the one that occurred the most and caused her the most stress. I told her, ‘Tomorrow morning, I want you to take your curling iron with you, to work.’ She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head and asking me to repeat myself, so I did, I said, ‘Take your curling iron with you. Just wrap the cord around it, make sure it’s not hot or that it’s in its travel case if it is, and put it in your passenger seat in the car. Right where you can see it.’ She did this, and then she came in the next week and sat in that chair and cried out of sheer relief. She even went so far as to bring the Grop-darn thing into her workplace with her and set it right next to her keyboard in her cubicle. She gained ownership and control over the biggest stressor that had manifested from her compulsive disorder, in about a day or two. Did it fix her problems entirely? No. But it allowed her a modicum of personhood again and the ability to focus on other aspects of the therapy.”

“I can see why that might have caused issues for other colleagues,” Wander said, almost sure that this sort of thing was what earned Jones the moniker of “Screwball”. “You want a sustainably supportive treatment option but you also don’t want to disrupt a pattern that’s already been strengthened, or enable the behavior to the point of indulgence. But what about it…? Not to harp. Just outta curiosity. I mean, substitution. One fixation for another. Tough call.”

“Surely, but the concern was safety directly related to that object, and that’s the argument. There was a conducive shift in her approach to her safety, and she grasped that conceptual change very clearly and effectively. That’s essentially all substitution boils down to.”

Wander nodded, taking that in. It was simple and hard to refute.

“Then again, though, look at the progress you’ve made in reworking your patterns. I know they’re not as blatant as that, the disruption not as severe, but you’re doing the same thing at the very base level of it - active choice after active choice. Really well. And I think that’s important to recognize, whether it’s substitution or diversion or another fancy, more acceptable word for it.” Dr. Jones’ eyes spiraled a bit as he smiled, emphasizing that positive point with a positive spin.

“I don’t know. I have had a lot of disruptions overall in the last few weeks and I kind of feel like I’m losin’ what control I finally had. Sort of like…” He paused and Dr. Jones waited patiently for him to finish the thought. Slowly he inhaled, and brought a hand up to scratch at his chin, trying to figure out how to put that feeling into words coherently. “Like I’m reachin’ that high point on a magnetic tide and everything’s startin’ to get a bit wobbly before I get to that peak where everything is just shakin’ loose and ready to just fly off entirely.”

“You’re such a painter today. Can we go back to what it was that Sylvia had said? ‘Where was the expectation’? In the past I recall that the few times when this was an expectation it was due to anxiety.”

“Mostly. The time before the last it was a ‘I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours, first, and I think that was about the time I came to you.”

“Mm. I recall that as well. Was this the same sort of situation or more of one like the others?”

Wander shook his head. “It really wasn’t anything at all. I just had that urge to say somethin’, but you know, I sort of just tamped it down and internally freaked out about it instead. I still have that feelin’ that says I should have talked about it. I should have. And before you have to ask it, I know it’s awkward. I don’t know yet how I feel about this person enough to move the relationship that far forward.”

“Can I ask if you feel like this is a substitution? This new relationship, and Sylvia?”

He thought back to what he’d asked her on the couch last night, and then he felt his stomach churn just a bit. “I did ask her if she’d consider goin’ back to what she did before she met me, but in all honesty I do that sort of thing a lot, and we discuss it a lot, too. I don’t think that has too much bearin’ on somethin’ like this. I did it to her at the grocery store one weekend while she was puttin’ in an order at the deli. Asked her if she thought she might ever want to just go back to stay with her family and help her Mom around the house instead of me. Wasn’t triggered by anything at all, just suddenly felt I needed the reassurance. She’s a right trooper about it though, bless her.”

“I just want to put that thought out there so that we can examine it critically, you understand.” That should have been his mantra. It was a pretty good way to say let’s slow down and make sure we’re not making any assumptions or projecting, or missing anything. Wander honestly used it a lot too, but when it came to the kids it was more of a lesson than a reminder. In either instance it helped curb anxieties and bolster confidence and growth in the way of critical thinking. At the moment it sort of felt like that split lip of his did and how it was hard to stop playing with it as it healed - annoying but unavoidable.

“I getcha. I don’t know if that’s resistance talkin’ or not though, I figure I’ll have to pick that one apart a bit.”

Dr. Jones tapped the pencil on the desk a couple of times, and repeated, half to himself, “‘Where was the expectation?’ That sure is a good one to put in your toolbox for later.”

“I’m glad you feel that way. I felt that way. It was sort of like bumpin’ up against a glass door you thought was open. Not hard, but just abrupt. Nailin’ down expectation on that front and sayin’ it out loud was like puttin’ a hand out and realizing, ‘You squashhead, that’s a door’. Not like it ever wasn’t a door before you said it, you just processed it as somethin’ else if not perceivin’ that it was there at all.”

“You didn’t happen to order any extra shots in that coffee of yours there, did you?”

In lieu of the events of last week, his first appointment of the day had been canceled to make room for a supervised visit. He spent that time going over paperwork for that case with Galactica, and wondering what and who they’d need to shuffle around gently with new appointments once court dates started flowing in. She promised she’d do her best, and that she’d contact the care agency to make future arrangements for support services. Then she put her pen and datebook down and sat back in the chair across the desk from him and said, “You need to schedule some vacation time.”

“Eventually.”

“You said that the last two times I reminded you. And this isn’t a bid for me to schedule mine, it’s just me saying that you might consider a break soon. You deserve it.”

He finished highlighting with the pink highlighter and then reached for the green one, and then stopped and looked up at her. He smiled. “Thank you for thinkin’ of me. And thank you for sayin’ that. You know, it might have been a while since I last said that, too. I’m really glad I have such kindness in my life. Such kind people like you, Galactica.” She smiled at him, and he started in with the highlighter again, continuing, “Listen, I know I haven’t been the best of company for the last little bit. I’m a bit frazzled and unfocused. A little erratic. Things’ll settle, though. I promise I’ll do my best to weather it… The last vacation I took was short, and things for Syl at the shop are gonna get a shake up soon. But I trust that you won’t let me get by it again.”

She took that as a victory and his big grin afterwards as spoils.

Midway through the day and in between his remaining sessions he darkened the office and put the acoustic guitar he’d been using aside in its stand, and made himself comfortable on the couch for a rest. Fifteen minutes in, his phone vibrated gently and his text message alert went off, a soft “ping” sound. He lifted his head up a bit and turned over onto his side, phone in hand, and opened the message. It was Peepers.

“Busy?” it said.

He responded, “Lunch break, but not busy.” After a few moments, his ringer started up and the phone buzzed, and he answered softly, “Howdy.”

“You sound just as tired as me,” Peepers said, just as groggily.

“It’s the middle of the day. Don’t you sleep ‘round this time? I feel like you ought to be sleepin’.”

“Same. But I wanted to ask you if we could take a rain check on Sunday. Or a snow check, it’s still snowing, I’d bet. I don’t want to open the curtains in my room, it’s nice and dark.”

Wander looked around his office, smiling to himself and also sort of dreading having to open his blinds back up when it was time for his next appointment. The snow was nice but the sky wasn’t dark enough - it was that hazy, fuzzy and painful gray and white that was just too bright to enjoy without a headache. He didn’t want to turn on the lights again, either. “Is everything okay?”

“I just got a rather short notice from our producer about one of our labels’ investors coming in to visit, is all. He wants to meet Dom in person, do some schmoozing, talk shop about her joining on with us, and make sure Awesome isn’t just dropping acid and making it all up.”

“Does Awesome regularly drop acid?”

“Amphetamines are more his… uh, speed.”

“I get that one.”

“Oh, good. Good. Sorry.”

“It’s funny, but I hope it’s not an addiction.”

Peepers laughed. “No, he’s alright, it’s recreational and he’s pretty smart about it. Most of the time. I’m sorry. I’m sorry this is so sudden. It’s just that this is our largest investor and we’re kind of hoping this can kickstart the tour we want to do. Fund new albums and stuff. You know.” Wander assured him that he knew. It was music business. He knew. All of that was just sort of a big, nebulous and questionable mess to him that he never wanted to give in to. He liked being able to turn it into a useful tool to applicably assist others - it still kept his love for being a musician at its core but also his innate love for helping those in need. From a Terran poetry chapbook he’d picked up at the bookstore, he took to heart the line, “money and art are far apart”, and couldn’t really argue with that idea that after the jumble of getting the picture book published and the heated discussions on trying to record his children's songs to sell at his performances.

Most adults in charge of making big decisions just didn’t understand the complexity of “Mayo or Mustard”. And besides, those adults weren’t the main crowd that he was trying to sing the song for anyways so phoo on them. He’d tried his best to make it work without a buffer.

But then he realized that this was what Peepers did, and did sustainably well enough. And it was good to support people you like doing things they loved, he knew. There was something about demos being mentioned on the other end of the line, but he couldn’t wait or he’d probably back out of it. “Peepers, I’m sorry to interrupt you - I could ask you questions for days about what I know and don’t know and what I assume about the industry, but here’s a thought: What if I just came with you to your fancy party?”

The line went quiet for a moment. “Well, it’s not really a fancy party, but kind of more like an informal business meeting.”

“Let’s bump dinner up by a little bit and then go to your informal business meetin’.”

“...Do you have a swimsuit?”

“A pair of swimmin’ shorts, sure. Wowee, how informal are we gettin’ here?”

“It’ll be at Awesome’s, out in the suburb west of town - he’s got a really great backyard. Tropical landscaping and a hot tub. We wouldn’t be bothered by the snow at all. That’s if you’re comfortable with the idea.”

“Oh. A hot tub. Now if it were a regular pool I’d say, okay, but even with a bit of hesitation - I’m heck incarnate on pool filters and I don’t know if a little jacuzzi could survive me, even if I sat down with a slicker brush beforehand.” He adjusted the pillow under his head and had to make a mental note to ask Galactica to pick up more sticky rollers. He’d forgotten last week in all the hustle and bustle, and he was losing quite a lot of fur despite his thick winter-ish coat coming in as a result of the local weather. He had been very good about not pulling it out but that said nothing about whether or not he was brushing too much or too hard, or if it really was just the stress he was feeling.

“I’m sure it will be fine. He has an incredible cleaning service. What time ought I head over to pick you up? Is 5 too early? I don’t think we’ll stay that late out at Awesome’s place, and he’d probably want to see us near 7 if we aren’t doing dinner there. Then we’d have to swing back around for Hater on our way out.”

“If that’s how you wanna play it, I’m game.”

Peepers sounded a bit more awake now, and a little excited, too. “And the demos?”

Wander blinked, pausing for a bit to try to remember what that was about. He failed. “Remind me, I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to interrupt and miss out on what you said. Well, I mean, I did, sort of, but I’m sorry. Gracious, that’s so rude of me, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, please, don’t apologize. I had asked if you’d be willing to listen to the demos on the way out of town. We’re going to give them a whirl tonight but we also want to figure out how best to upsell them.”

“Be your soundin’ board? Sure. Sure, I’d love that.”

“They’re very bare bones, some of them are acoustic, so--”

“Oh, that’s fine, no worries.”

“Okay.” There was a pause. And then, very gently, “I’ll see you around 5 on Sunday?”

He found that he couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice when he said, “You’ll see me at 5 on Sunday, Peepers.” After hanging up, he lay there and realized he still had a good fifteen minutes to go before his alarm went off and he had to get back up and get ready for his next appointment.

The week filtered by quickly - Wander decided to act on his earlier concern and see his doctor, and was deemed concussion-free but still advised to take things easy. He filled in at the bookstore one evening for a local performer who had to cancel his show last minute, and that was a wonderful little switch-up; he played some cover songs and a few of the things he’d written for older audiences, and got to catch up with some of the store staff he never really got to see much. He gave the trade credits he’d earned with that show to Sylvia, who used it to pick up a big stack of some of her favorite movies for them to watch and he himself cashed in some of his credit and picked up the drum he’d put on hold, along with a board game and an old poetry anthology. He even spent a little time going through videos on the Harbingers of Doom channel on Vyutube and listening to their stuff. There were a couple of songs he really liked that he wished they’d played at the concert and he made a note to ask Peepers about it later on. 

As far as work was concerned, he had two depositions to give and one brand new, nervous client, a phone seminar to conduct and immeasurable amounts of paperwork to do, and he left on Friday with some binders and a bit of heavy reading in mind to do over the weekend. Not to mention another reminder from Galactica to refrain from forgetting about looking at his calendar and figuring out that personal time.

On Saturday Sylvia woke up to find that he’d build a blanket fort in the middle of the living room, and she sleepily crawled right on inside and around him and his stack of reading material. “Good morning,” he said, setting down his highlighter pen and petting her softly on the nose.

“Have you had breakfast yet?” she asked, curling her tail and relaxing down onto all of the cushions and pillows, and the soft blankets he’d laid down.

He set down the research journal he’d been pouring through with the pen, and leaned back against her. “No, but I promise that I was waitin’ for you to get up to take a break to do that.”

She knew that he was as much a pro at building blanket and pillow forts as he was at playing most any musical instrument, so he couldn’t have been awake too much earlier than her, but she asked anyways. He’d only been up a couple of hours. He knew it was hard for her not to be mad at him for bringing home so much extra work, mostly because she brought home work too at times and it was… well, it was enjoyable work, speaking honestly. But she’d been upset when he’d walked through the door the night before with his arms full and his big fuzzy bomber hat slipping off and his snow boots squeaking and squelching. It came from love, there was never a doubt about it. He’d either been sleeping too much or not enough, and not well at all, overall, and she was both limiting herself in helping him and limited in what she could help with anyways. It had to be frustrating. He forgave her for it wholly and hoped she could could forgive his manic behavior.

“Are you excited for tomorrow?” she asked him, handing him a jar of jam from the fridge and grabbing the butter and milk as she shut the door.

“Incredibly. I hope it’s a productive evenin’ for him but at the same time it was fun watchin’ him work and I’m glad I get to see him at it again.” The smell of toast definitely made him hungrier than he thought he was, and he devoured two slices and a bowl of oatmeal with a bit more jam stirred in He kicked his feet under the table a bit, and said, “I have a lot more things I’ve been wantin’ to ask him about.”

The next evening he tried his best to convince his stomach that the salad he’d ordered was going to be delicious. Tucked into a corner booth at a little place that Peepers had picked out, he sipped at the soda he’d ordered and smiled across the table at his date, who was playing with the corner of the placemat in front of him. “How’s your week been? I’ve been trying to behave and not blow your phone up. I’m really good at doin’ that, I’ve been told.”

“I’ve actually been trying not to do the same. I have to remind myself that it’s usually the middle of the night when I just want to chat with you. Oh, that sounds weird. Is it weird to say that? Weird to hear it?” 

He couldn’t help but let his smile widen, and he laughed, a goofy little giggle that he cut short and apologized for. “I got really excited when it started snowing,” he said, hoping that actually chatting would break that nervousness that could barely fit in the van with them when Peepers had picked him up. “I got to pull out the heaviest sweaters I own.”

“Is that one of them? I like it. It’s a good color on you. Nice design, too, was it hand-knit?”

“I wish I could say it was, there’s a tag on the collar, but, you know.” It was a big, oversized oatmeal, green, and blue thing, with an intricate pattern. Heavy wool and worn soft. He pulled the sleeves up a bit so they bunched at his elbows, so that he wasn’t tempted to hide in it as he usually was. This was his best sweater for that, and he was happy to have found it and mended the small holes it had along the seams, and to care for it diligently so it wouldn’t shrink or stretch or dry misshapenly. “It’s still very comfortable.”

Peepers left the placemat alone and sort of folded his hands together. He had chosen to wear a nice button-down in black, and Wander noticed the cufflinks he wore - silver and enamel skulls with bright flowers and other designs. They matched the belt buckle he’d caught a glimpse of as Peepers had taken his jacket off and slid into the booth. The jeans were still shredded and his boots were still imposing, but it was a good look. He hadn’t been entirely sure what he should have expected but it was more along the lines of more chains and spikes and the regular fare, except shined up and polished even further, to a mirror finish. He did miss the helmet and its giant finial a bit. The van had been nice and warm however and that was a fair trade in his view. He wondered how Peepers might react to a hand-made beanie.

It’d been awhile since he’d picked up his yarn stash and made something for someone that wasn’t Sylvia. Yeesh. He was going to fix that.

Red.

Bright red, like a candied apple. Maybe with a cheerful star like the beveled ones on his jacket. Something fun. But definitely red, to match his eye.

“Do I have ...Is there something…?” Peepers reached up and made a small gesture, a little confused. 

Wander realized he’d been staring. “Oh, hollyhocks. I’m sorry. Tell you what, let’s do some, uh, let’s try the talkin’ thing again, that was rude. Sylvia says you guys hired a regular for when you get to leavin’ on tour with Hater’s band?”

“Ah, yes we did. She says you know him - from the little diner near the boutique? He’s got six-sides and a great sense of humor.”

It was Cube. Good deal, he felt. That job the guy was currently holding wasn’t the best, though he was really great at it. Perhaps the environment of a retail store would be better. Working for Jeff would certainly be an upgrade. “I’m glad to hear it. Is Jeff going to hold your position for you until you come back?”

“I sort of hope so, but that’s the worst in me.”

“The worst? I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be prepared. You may not even need the work after y’all come back.”

“Truth is, I don’t need it now. I’m just kind of a workaholic and during the off-project times I’d go a little stir-crazy so this was the best option. If I can leave Jeff with a solid crew and we can do this high-dollar musician thing seriously and for good, I probably won’t go back. I’ll miss the discount, though. Boy. And the quiet nights. Though there’s still a lot of that fun and some lulls on tour, also, I guess. And I keep some good playlists to keep me up through the night shifts at the store, most customers that late are kind of put off by videos playing on the television behind the counter, even if they’re clean ones.”

He wasn’t really sure where to take that one, so he just backed up a bit. “Are you considerin’ managin’ Dom, too?”

Peepers paused for a second before bursting into laughter. “Oh, oh, boy, you know, I’m gonna get asked the same question tonight by several people important to my role and I still don’t know if I can give them the straight answer or just roll over and let them tell me to do it, and do it begrudgingly.” Wander asked him if he didn’t want to. “Partially. Dom is… well… honestly we haven’t heard from her last manager in several months. We’re wondering if he’s still with us or if the recording company has just been using a cardboard cutout and some very well-planned press releases and statements to keep us from finding out. I’m sure we’re going to be talking about that tonight, too.”

Their meal came - a big, bubbling pizza covered in roasted veggies, and the salad Wander had picked out for them to share too: a pretty mixed greens pile with fruit, nuts, and a balsamic dressing. They started to dish one another up in turns, laughing a bit at how natural that action was.

“How did your show go this morning?” Peepers said, trying to corral some toppings back onto the slice he’d pulled for Wander. “As excitable as last week? I’m sorry I couldn’t make it, I switched shifts with Ryder for tonight.”

“You wanted to come? Gosh, gosh ‘n’ golly, that sure is nice to hear. Um. Well. It was fantastic, actually. There was a parent that hadn’t been in for a while with her little one, because she’d had another littler little one. And she brought both of ‘em in, and we just had a really good time. I taught everyone my favorite lullabye, and the new big sister was so happy to learn it, she kept sayin’ ‘Mr. Wander, please, I want a good song to sing to him when he gets all ready for bed,’ so I had to oblige. Cutest little muffins.”

“I’m really sad I missed this.”

Wander handed him his plate full of the salad in exchange for the plated pizza. “Do you like kids, much, Peepers?”

“Part of me wants to make a smart crack about this only being our second actual date, but then the sensible side of me says ‘don’t joke about it, it’s his job, joke about the hot tubbing you’re going to be doing with him later.’”

That made Wander laugh. He had to put his fork down.

“I do like them. I don’t know that I’d ever be really good at the Dad thing. A lot of my past partners and several parents who know me would disagree. But you, they must be everything to you.”

“Honestly, they’re a lot.”

“Is that why you got into your field?” He watched Peepers carefully fold his pizza slice up and start in on it, which was sort of an indicator that it was finally time for him to talk about that in depth. Subtle and polite.

“Mostly. I dig music somethin’ great, and when I realized that people reacted to it how they did in beneficial ways, I decided to look into usin’ it to help. For a while I was part of a practice that saw mainly adults and that was great and all, but one day they asked me to help with a particularly tough case with a child and I couldn’t say no. It opened a lot of doors, in _my_ mind, about what purpose I had, and I’ve been asked to see kids as far out as the lower quadrant because of it. It just felt… I don’t wanna say easier, that gives it a negative context but I guess it felt that way because it felt right. Like that was what I needed to be doin’. I still see adults every now and then on referral from my associate in the practice I’m currently at. It’s a lot of good fun but there’s also a lot of hard work and some really hard days, too.”

“I imagine you can’t go into specifics.”

“You imagine correctly.” He took a moment to eat some of his own pizza, finding the veggies to be absolutely delicious and perfectly cooked. The crust wasn’t bad at all, either.

“So do you just sit around and play music in your sessions or how does that work?”

“So it’s all strategic. I mean, accidental and unstudied musical therapy happens every day even when someone isn’t in my office, or is even one of my patients. Let’s see. How can I put it for you… What was the last movie you saw in a theater? You don’t have to answer, but just think about it - it was your only focus for a couple of hours, right?” Peepers nodded. “Alright. Think about the soundtrack. You were mostly immersed in that story because the soundtrack helped you cognitively to process the story emotionally, psychologically. If you cried, physically.”

“I cried. I won’t lie. It was a touching film.”

“So what I do then is I act as a soundtrack composer for my clients. I help them feel comforted, I help them get their anger out, I help them feel better after we talk about the heavy things. Frame their mindset for stuff. You said that you make playlists to listen to at the store? Do you name them? Like, what’s the name of a playlist you’ve made recently.”

“Uh.”

“Or a favorite one, maybe.”

“A favorite play-- Oh, okay, I called it… you’re going to laugh, but I called it, ‘Late Night Couvoirsier’.”

He smiled. “That sounds lovely. Not funny at all. What’s on it?”

“Jazz. Smooth, liquid free-form jazz. Medium tempo, nothing too crashing or jaunty. Just easy listening.”

“Somethin’ to browse movie titles to in a comfortable manner?” Wander offered, hoping that the small gesture he made when he said ‘movie titles’ would be accepted as-is and without the provocation of further detail. It was. This guy was very, very observant. _Nice._ “So all your playlists elicit a mood or a series of feelin’s. That’s kind of what I do. That and talk, assess, lots of paperwork. Sometimes even arts ‘n’ crafts if we don’t want to use our words for a little bit. That’s important, too, communication without words. Jazz does that a lot.”

Peepers nodded emphatically in agreement. “Is it mostly just those coming in for therapeutic help?”

“Therapeutic help has a lot of facilitatin’ reasons and sources. I deal a lot with court cases.” Wander could feel his voice dropping a little flatly at that. And his date picked that up, too.

“It seems a lot like putting the final tracklisting on an album together,” Peepers asked, moving away from that subject.

“A lot, yeah. Like when I do setlists for the bookstore. Or your setlist for tour. Oh! So when artists do their signings and meetin’ and greetin’s they hear a lot about how they’ve helped someone. How they provided an outlet for them, or an attachment or a distraction, or even like, listenin’ to Hater’s band I felt… I felt like I could tell him, ‘I use your songs when I’m at the gym, and it helps me get ripped,’” Wander said, trying to make his voice all gravely and flexing an arm.

“I get that. I do use some of Hater’s music when I’m working out. It’s good to get ripped to. I can pump all of the iron, for days.”

He laughed. “That’s the accidental and unstudied application of music therapy.”

“Well, damn.”

“It’s really neat stuff. So. You know. Thanks for bein’ a part of it too, in a way. It’s always great hearin’ new things, and I don’t… I’m not particular about what I listen to or play at all, it’s all music and it’s all good, and it’s all creative magic. I obviously don’t go to the gym, though, I can’t be lyin’ about that. But it’s great for cleanin’ the apartment. I got it done quick and easy-like listenin’ to the Harbingers of Doom. I actually can’t wait to hear these demos and talk a bit more about it with Hater himself.”

After dinner and dessert (a little bowl with a big brownie and some hot fudge), and a toasty van ride back to Peepers’ place, he waited on the couch again for them to gather up and get ready, and for Hater to finish the remaining pizza and the hot wings they’d brought back for him. Peepers insisted on bringing their own towels, and Wander double checked that his own was in his backpack. He reached down to open up the drawstring, and was surprised to see a scruffy little arachnomorph investigating his bag and his shoes. It hesitated for a moment when it realized it had been caught, and hissed at him, but didn’t back away. He only watched it with smile on his face. “You sure are cute,” he said. “I really wanna pick you up but I don’t think that’d be such a great idea.”

“Oh, that’s Tim, sorry,” Peepers came over to pick up the little beast, and it flashed its fangs for a second before just letting itself hang in his arms, getting its fur scritched. “She was hiding the last time you were here, but now she’s gotten a little braver about you, it seems.”

“She’s really, really cute.”

“She bites.”

“Still cute. I’ll wait for her to warm up to me before I pick her up, I promise.”

Peepers set her down on the floor behind him, and sat on the arm of the couch. She skittered off, but then skittered right back over with a raggedy toy in her mouth and climbed up into his lap.

Hater came out of his room with his own backpack over his shoulder, checking his phone one last time before putting it in the front pocket of his hoodie. “I’m leaving my bedroom open for her,” he said gruffly. His jeans were tattered and torn, too, and when he turned around to shut off the hallway light, Wander noticed the giant Harbingers patch sewn into the back of the hoodie. It looked hand-made, and very awesome, and he complimented it. Hater shrugged and said that one of Peepers’ exes had made it eons ago. One for everyone in the band. Peepers had one, too, but he never wore it.

Peepers shrugged. He wouldn’t ask.

They piled into the van, cranked up the heat, and headed out to Awesome’s place. Wander sat in the passenger seat, and from behind him Hater popped up with a tablet and a pair of headphones. “Peeps said you’d give this a listen, being a musician and stuff. We wanna show these off tonight but they’re just crap demos. You know. Nothing polished at all. First-run lyrics, that sort of thing.” 

“After seeing your actual, polished, final-run lyrics live and amped up, I would be delighted,” Wander said, and Peepers shut off the radio and turned the heater down a notch or two for him as he put the headphones on.

He looked down at the tablet in his lap and watched the tracking run through, listening to the stodgy recording and trying to pay attention to what it was alluding to as far as an idealized end result. It was heavy and guttural and a bit too fast, but he really liked the lyrics. He really, _really_ liked the lyrics. “It’s very ballad-y,” he said when the first song had finished. “Very operatic. There’s a lot of potential there. Might you think about slowing it down a bit and leaning more towards a shred style than a djent?”

“Uhhh,” uttered Hater. “W-wait, let me see which one you’re listening to,” he said, reaching for the tablet, tangling his and Wander’s arms up in the cord of the headphones. Peepers glanced over for a moment, and waited quietly. “Oh, that one. I don’t know if that one’s going to be on the album. It’s too personal.”

“Too personal? Let me guess, it’s the one we recorded Tuesday.”

“Yeah, what of it?” Hater grumbled at Peepers, annoyed, suddenly.

“Nothing’s wrong with it - I think it’s the strongest track you’ve got. It could be the greatest.”

“You hate that it’s about Dom.”

“I don’t hate that it’s about her,” Peepers groused, tossing a hand up. “I hate that you’re being so wishy-washy about it.”

Wander smiled widely. He turned to look at Hater. “It’s about Dom? Hater, you _have_ to slow this one down. Maybe cut a couple of the direct references if you feel it’s too personal - I swear I didn’t even know who you were singin’ about until you said it, but if you put that on the album you’d better be certain you wanna take that on tour because everyone’s gonna wanna hear it, and they’ll know who it’s about, regardless.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” said Peepers, “because, Hater, when you think about it, isn’t that how we’re going to build and bill this thing anyways?”

“Only if it’s genuine,” Hater said, quietly. Peepers sighed.

Quickly, Wander found himself pulling a 180 on it. “Wait.” They went quiet. “Oh, wait, wait. Is this why Dom is switching labels? You wanna market a relationship.”

“They’re not in a relationship,” said Peepers.

Hater said simultaneously, “We’re not in a relationship.” And then, “We tried that already. But… but I wanna try again.”

“She does, too,” Peepers offered, and Wander caught the tone in his voice right off the bat. “I know there’s so much business between the two of you right now but there’s still room to have personal conversations about personal things.”

“Okay, so I recognize I haven’t entirely been here for the whole hayride but here is what I think. Don’t play this one tonight. We can polish it up and get it real good and then spring it on her at a better time - and if you really want to sell yourself to her and then sell that tour to your fans, Peepers, he’s right, but it’s gotta be genuine. As soon as anyone gets wind that it’s fake, even just on the one side, there go your reviews.” The van went quiet for a few moments. Then, he said, “I think it could work out between the two of you, though. She seemed real keen to talk to you about it at the show.”

Hater talked him through a couple more tracks that they figured they could share instead, and Peepers was silent for the rest of the ride out.

 

“Right on time,” Awesome, said, answering the door in a garish, neon pink silk robe, a drink in hand. “Come on in, it’s cold out there. Let’s get you a couple of drinks and then get you right back outside, eh? Peepers, you look hella slick tonight. Yeow.”

“Just something light for me, Awesome, I’m driving,” Peepers said, shaking his hand and stepping inside, stomping his boots and wiping them a bit on the doormat before he entered.

Wander shook his host’s hand too and followed closely, sort of amazed by the amount of mirrors and neon lights in the living room, advertising all sorts of liquors and beers and other things and sort of trying to avoid looking at Awesome’s untied robe

“The two back bedrooms are open if you guys need to change, and need the, uh, privacy. Wonder, was it?”

“Uh, Wander,” Peepers corrected him.

Awesome grinned. His teeth sort of glowed in the blacklight along the sidewall of the little bar made out of the kitchen counter island. “ _Wander_. I’m sorry, bro, I’ve been thinking ‘Wonder’ this whole time, my bad. What can I get you to drink?”

“Something fruity, please. Thank you.”

He waited patiently for Hater and Peepers to change first, and as Awesome handed him a bubbly and frothy screwdriver, they started chatting. “So, Wander,” the producer said, carefully rimming a glass with lime juice and salt, “Things with Peeps going well enough, it seems. Good to see you back in for another round after the bullsnot at the bar. I gotta ask, though, where’d you learn to take a hit like that?”

“Oh, well. You know, when you learn how to roll with life’s punches, you can take ‘em from anyone else.”

Awesome laughed, tossing some ice into a shaker and pouring various bottles into it as well. “I hear that, little dude. Peeps tells me you guys already had dinner,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows and grinning predatorily, “so it looks like we’re going to get right on into the fun stuff.”

“...The fun stuff?” His drink was a bit heavy-handed.

“Relax a bit, talk some money, scope some jams, have a good time. I promise you, you won’t be going home with a black eye tonight. Unless Peepers decides he wants a turn protecting Dom’s honor, but we’ll get there when we get there, right? She’s out back with Sourdough already, hope you like bikini’s.” He shook the drink up with a flourish. Wander wasn’t sure of how to respond to any of this. “Has my boy been treating you right? He tends to get a little rough when he doesn’t get his way, sometimes.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He moves quick, I just want to know where the line is for the night. Hope you don’t mind me asking.”

Wander smiled uncomfortably, but smiled nonetheless. “I think we’ve passed that line a few steps.”

Awesome gave him a respectful nod and gave the shaker a little more vigor. “Drink okay? The oranges came from my own yard yesterday. Squeeze ‘em up nice and good today, so… sorry about the froth.”

“It’s good. It’s okay. Thank you.” Wander was vaguely aware that they had dated in the past, sure, but he wasn’t exactly ready to start asking about this sort of thing yet, and he wasn’t quite certain how Peepers felt about it, either, so to talk of it when he wasn’t even in the room was a sort of weird that he didn’t even want to see instigated. But no harm done, for the most part.

Hater came back out first, still wearing his hoodie but this time the jeans were gone and replaced with a pair of swim shorts that had a picture of a beach on them. And then Peepers emerged from the room further back, towel under his arm. His own swim shorts were black. “Drinks, gentlebrahs,” Awesome called, pouring the concoction he’d been shaking into the salt-rimmed glass and handing it to Hater. Peepers took his off of the bar counter, a simple sidecar, and made a face as he fished a cherry out by its stem. Awesome nodded at him and winked. Wander excused himself to go wriggle out of his sweater and sneakers, brush himself down quickly, and get into his swimwear, taking his drink with him.

They headed into the backyard, and to Wander’s surprise, the snow was everywhere. Except around the hot tub. This _was_ fancy, despite what Peepers said. The dark wooden deck felt great under his feet, and he shuffled over to the side of the hot tub with his towel and drink, and sat down to ease himself into the water.

Dom was already in the tub, towel around her hair and a cocktail in hand. She didn’t have any of her messy eyeliner on and she looked very, very pleased with herself. “Commander, you brought your dinner,” she said to Peepers with a smirk, reaching out a hand daintily to help him in as he, too, hurried to get in out of the cold air and into the heat.

He hushed her and made some room for Hater, but still put himself between the two of them.

Wander reached over to shake the hand of the gentleman he found himself settling in next to. He was wearing a ruched cravat, and oddly enough, shirt cuffs. And he held a sandwich on a plate. The gentleman, with his beautiful gazing ball head, shook Wander’s hand. After a quiet moment, the sandwich went, “Ahem.”  
“Oh, goodness, hello,” said Wander, sliding into the water and trying not to splash and splatter it everywhere. The wet heat soaked right into his fur and felt incredible on his joints almost instantly.

“Sourdough,” said Peepers. “Sourdough, this is Wander, he’s with me. Wander, this is the main investor for our label.”

“Yeah, he’s a real dish,” Awesome laughed, disrobing and climbing on in to join everyone. Peepers gave him another exasperated expression, and shook his head. 

The sandwich eyed Wander quietly, the little pimiento olives scrutinizing him carefully, and then said, “I feel like I know you from somewhere, or I’ve seen you before. Have you by any chance been company to Entozoa?”

Wander straightened up, a smile inching its way across his face. “Queen Entozoa?” Everyone in the jacuzzi gave him an odd look. “Sure, a couple of times.”

The sandwich seemed very satisfied by this. No one pressed it. “So, Dom, you’ve been enticed by some magical reason produced once upon a galactic convergence to join this motley crew in their rampage across the industry. You know... Buck had told me once early on when he’d picked you up that he thought of you as some sort of broken harpy. I mean, the guy is grandiose and over-dramatic. I am, too. But when he said that I couldn’t help it, I had to give you a waiting period before I checked you out and saw what you had to offer him.” He paused for a moment, ruffling his lettuce a bit and then continuing. “It wasn’t really what you offered him so much as what it was you offered your fans. I admire that. I admire artists who put that first before their work.”

Dom smiled. “Well. They’re responsible for what I do, in a way. I really just enjoy the action, the reaction, the call and response between them and me. I feed on that energy and like to see what comes of it, both from myself and the fans.”

“I don’t want to throw Harri under the bus here by extolling you so much. But we want this label to grow. So under the bus he goes. Why us? Why our label?”

“Please call me Hater,” said Hater, almost defeatedly.

“Harri,” said Dom, and left it at that.

Wander wasn’t sure if living bone could blush. The look on Hater’s face was definitely enough of a telling moment, though. Awesome cleared his throat and spoke up. “So the idea that’s been getting kicked around a bit is that we tour them together.”

“I have to admit that I don’t have much material ready at the moment. A lot of it is still tied up in the last little bit of red tape with McGuffin’s group,” said Dom, waving a hand. “But I think it could be a very interesting collaborative project. The tour. Maybe even a track, specifically for it, but that’s just a thought.”

Wander gave a very pointed look to Peepers, and with the tiniest glance, it was acknowledged.

“We brought some stuff tonight, actually,” said Hater, and the both of them nearly opened their mouths to say something over him. He continued, though, sitting up a bit and reaching behind him to grab his towel, where the tablet was sitting, to pull it forward and stretch out the cord of the headphones to Sourdough’s handler. “I’m getting into a lot of fantasy stuff, so it’s a little new for me, but I want to show you this one about a vast battle where nearly everyone dies, except the two warlords. It’s like their final standoff.”

Peepers relaxed, and turned to look at Awesome. “Do you remember that memorial site we visited on the last tour? On Trebula Nova?”

“Yeah,” Awesome nodded. “Bloodscorch. The Battle of Bloodscorch..”

“He’s calling it ‘Bloodscorch’. What do you think legal would say about that?”

He scratched at his chin for a bit, and then flexed his arm out and around the edge of the tub, and Wander caught it - his finger brushing against Dom’s arm for just a moment as he brought his arm down to rest. Dom gave no outward reaction. _Oh, boy,_ he thought to himself. _Ohh, boy, oh boy._

“That’s good,” said Sourdough after a bit of listening. “Visceral. I can’t wait to hear what that’s going to sound like when it’s tracked for production.” It got passed around, as Hater was adamant that they use the headphones and not rely on the tablet’s speaker, and some small talk about people Wander didn’t know was made while it was. Dom listened to it last. She seemed entertained.

“With what I’m thinking,” she said, handing the headphones to Hater and taking another sip of her drink, “This could be a really good show. Would you want to take that one on tour?”

“Legal,” warned Peepers. “Let’s hold that thought for a bit.”

“Fair enough.”

Sourdough “ahem’d” again, and then he said, “I feel like this is where we start discussing contracts. I really want to save that for a time when we can sit down with legal instead of calling them up during a quiet Sunday night at home. So I’ll just ask. Drop the giant chicken? Sign with us?”

She smiled wicked quick. “Flarp yes.”

Awesome fist-pumped the air. “Vrell yeah. You know what this means.”

There was a quiet pause, and then suddenly, everyone save himself and Sourdough’s handler said in varying tones of disgust and excitement, “Press junket.”

“There’s your fancy party, Wander,” said Peepers, leaning into the jet of water he’d been sitting next to and sending a small bubbling stream up behind his back and over his shoulders. “An excuse to get dressed up and snack on awesome foods, drink a lot and play ‘trollster bolster’.” 

Both Wander and Dom looked at him, confused.

“It’s where you build up hype for something that doesn’t exist and then watch the journalists attending try to one up you on this non-existent thing.”

“That doesn’t sound very kind,” Wander said.

“That actually sounds incredibly fun,” Dom said.

“Awesome is really, really good at it.”

Wander had gotten out early enough to get himself moderately dried off by the time they were ready to leave, and as they piled into the van, Dom pulled Hater aside for a moment. Peepers buckled himself in, and Wander turned to him.

But before he could figure out how to broach the subject, Peepers held up a hand. “It’s just how he is. It’s not going to mean anything. Awesome is… He’s got this prowess. He’s also really persuasive. But he’s ridiculously terrible at anything serious, and that’s me speaking from experience. Several times over. It’ll be alright.”

As soon as he said that, the side door of the van opened, and Hater climbed in with his backpack, and Dom leaned inside. “Commander Peeps, call me in a couple of days about the glasswork. I’ll try and get the forges stoked this week and get some new stuff in for you and Jeff to take a look at.” She made finger-guns at him, and he made one right back. And then she gave Hater a grin, and a wink, and shut the door.

Hater had a small smile on his face the whole ride back into town, and climbed up into the front seat quietly when they pulled up at Wander’s place to drop him off. Peepers got out of the van for a moment and came out to walk him to the door. The spikes and chains of his jacket shined in the light over the stoop and doorway, and Wander took his time fishing his keys out of his backpack. “I’m really glad I came out with you tonight. Thank you for havin’ me. I really do hope this all works out.”

“Oh, you know,” Peepers said, rubbing at the back of his head a bit. “We all do. I think we’ll manage.”

“I mean, I would like to stick around and see how it all happens, honestly. It’d make hangin’ out with you more kind of a requisite,” he said, letting that trail off a bit.

Peepers chuckled. “It’d be nice to have a hand to hold in all of this to keep me from losing my mind.”

“I do like holdin’ hands.” He could feel his face growing a bit hot, so he hurried up a bit, and found and pulled his keys out. He scrunched his sweater sleeves up. “I know the party’s a couple weeks away and it would kinda be a downer if I didn’t see you again before then… would you be interested in comin’ over for a movie night next Friday? Before your shift at the store?”

“I suppose I could swing that.”

“Good. We’ll make something nice for dinner. Hater can come too if he’d like.” Wander smiled, and sort of hesitated for a moment before shrugging. “I… you know, Peepers, I’m starting to feel really excited about things. This. You know. Us.”

Peepers nodded, and then after a moment he asked, “I really want to ask for a hug. But I don’t want to ruin another sweater.”

Wander rolled his eyes, pretending to be dramatic. “Oh gracious, how could I ever hug someone with a jacket on? Perhaps if I could only slide my arms up and under and around and hug them inside the jacket,” he ventured. And he didn’t regret it. Peepers laughed again, and shuffled his feet in those big boots, and held his arms out. Wander eased in, making it quick. Peepers was very warm, and his hug back was tighter and more personal than the last one. When Wander pulled away, he could hear from the van a single, quiet, and grumbly “Gross,” from Hater. “Get home safely,” Wander told Peepers. “Text me when you do.”

“I’ll text you when we do,” the manager said, and waited until Wander was well inside the building before getting in the van and taking off.

Sylvia was already snoozing away on the couch with a movie on when he got inside, but she stirred a bit when he tried turning out the light in the kitchen. “You’re home,” she said in a sing-song manner.

“I’m home,” he responded happily.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes a bit and turned on the lamp on the far side table, by the wall. “How was it?”

“I feel like it’s just what I needed.”


End file.
